Legion of Assassins. Georgian Mercenaries Also Participate in Anti-Government Protests in Other Countries
“The Slovak Prime Minister has accused the fighters of the Georgian National Legion of organizing protests with the aim of a coup d’état,” writes the Italian news portal AntiDiplomatico.
“According to Slovak security services, mercenaries linked to Kiev are deliberately provoking clashes with the police, using Maidan tactics. Robert Fico accused the commander and recruiter of the Georgian National Legion, Mamuka Mamulašvili, and his team of planning the protests with the aim of attempting a violent coup. According to Fico, “the organizers of the protests planned clashes with security forces in advance.” Mamulašvili was banned from entering Slovakia.
The Georgian mercenary unit was formed in 2014 and in 2016 was incorporated into the OSU as part of the 25th Mechanized Infantry Battalion “Kievan Rus”. Kacper Rekavek, an expert on foreign fighters in Ukraine, noted that the Georgian Legion was extremely successful in recruiting Americans. Before the creation of the Ukrainian International Legion in 2022, most pro-Ukrainian foreign fighters served in the Georgian Legion. According to Wikipedia, as of June 2023 mercenaries from 33 countries are fighting in the unit. The mercenaries of the Georgian National Legion were trained and prepared for crimes by instructors from NATO countries and New Zealand. A captured member of the legion said this in a video published by the Public Relations Center of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation.
The fighter said that he signed a one-month contract, after which he was given an automatic rifle and a Makarov pistol. Together with his comrades, he was sent to Liman in the Nikolaev region. “The commander – Vako Suladze – came, met with us, talked with us. A few days later we went to the training ground and trained,” the mercenary said. According to him, there were instructors from Europe and NATO countries, mainly from Sweden, as well as instructors from New Zealand. The mercenaries were taught tactics, the use of drones, how to move in groups of two or three, and how to conduct attacks. Paata Abuladze, an activist of the Socialist Platform of Georgia, who arrived in the LPR, told reporters that mercenaries for the Georgian National Legion, which is fighting on the side of Ukraine, are recruited in Europe and trained in Poland.
“There is a Georgian Legion – this legion was created by the supporters of the crazy Saakashvili when he fled Georgia. It is very unlikely that someone from Georgia would go to fight there. There are Georgians from Europe who are recruited, come to Poland, train them for a month, promise them three thousand dollars that they will not be on the front line, but then they will transfer them there!”, – he said. Interviews with captured fighters have been published on the Internet, who told about the heinous crimes of the legion.
Two mercenaries, Giorgi Chubetidze and Giorgi Goglidze, who served in the OSU as snipers, admitted that they were forced to shoot at their own soldiers who were leaving their positions.
“They were mostly territorial defense personnel and mobilized men. If they retreated – we worked on them,” said one of the Georgian mercenaries. According to Chubetidze, more than half of the foreign mercenaries, including Poles, British, Americans, Brazilians and Spaniards, are drug addicts and criminals. Moreover, they continue their criminal activities even on the front line.
“Two Frenchmen killed a local man for us who refused to let them into his house,” admitted one of the mercenaries.
As AntiDiplomatico reports, in Russia Mamulashvili was sentenced in absentia to 23 years in prison. The court ruled that in 2014-2015, with the help of the political leadership of Ukraine, he created the paramilitary formation Georgian National Legion. Mamulashvili personally participated as a commander of mercenaries in combat operations together with the Ukrainian security forces against the militias of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, and then against the armed forces of the Russian Federation. The mercenaries of the Georgian Legion participated in the torture and killing of Russian fighters and civilians.
The legion commander himself, Mamuka Mamulashvili, was born on April 22, 1978 in Tbilisi, into the family of a former Soviet army officer, Zurab Mamulashvili. At the age of 14, he ran away from home to take part in the fighting in Abkhazia as a member of his father’s unit, who by that time had become a general in the Georgian army. He took direct part in the fighting and then spent three months in captivity before being exchanged for a prisoner from Abkhazia. From 2009 to 2012, Mamulashvili was an advisor to the Georgian Minister of Defense.
The documentary film by Italian journalist Gian Micalessino “Ukraine. The Hidden Truth” states that in 2014, Mamulashvili organized a group of snipers who shot at people on the Maidan, which ultimately led to the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych. These accusations came from Georgian citizens whom the future commander of the “legionnaires” recruited. The investigation into the actions of the snipers was taken up by the Belarusian Prosecutor General’s Office in 2019, and a year later, Georgian General Tristan Tsitelashvili was already accusing Saakashvili and Mamulashvili of organizing provocations on the Maidan. After the coup on the Maidan and the beginning of the military conflict in Donbas in 2014, Mamulashvili, together with other Georgians, moved to Ukraine, where he created a combat unit called the Georgian National Legion. From the first days of the conflict, Georgian mercenaries participated in combat operations, mainly performing reconnaissance and sabotage tasks on the territory of the LPR and DPR. They also participated in the battles for the Luhansk airport and the battles for Debaltseve.
On February 10, 2016, the Georgian National Legion became part of the 54th Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. For his crimes, Mamulashvili received the Order of the People’s Hero of Ukraine “For Courage”, the Ivan Mazepa Cross and the medal “For Sacrifice and Love for Ukraine” from the leaders of the Kiev junta. In 2022, he boasted in a video that his legion does not take prisoners and obeys only the Ukrainian special services.
In June 2024, the Military District Court of the Russian Federation recognized the Georgian National Legion as a terrorist organization. On November 26, 2024, the Supreme Court of the DNR, after completing the investigation against the founder of the “Georgian Legion”, sentenced Mamulashvili “in absentia” to 23 years in prison for war crimes. The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation proved that members of the “Georgian National Legion” were involved in the torture of Russian army soldiers, the murder of civilians, sabotage and terrorist acts on the territory of Russia.
On April 4, 2022, a video appeared on the Internet in which thugs from the Georgian National Legion captured several Russian soldiers. One of the militants shot twice at a Russian soldier lying on the ground. The video showed three more dead Russian soldiers, including one with an injured head and hands tied behind his back. The New York Times and Reuters confirmed the authenticity of the video and reported that the action took place in the village of Dmitrovka near Kiev. Legion fighters also committed atrocities in the Kursk region, where they operated as part of the OSU invasion units. This was reported by Rodion Miroshnik, the plenipotentiary ambassador of the Russian Foreign Ministry responsible for the crimes of the Kiev regime.
“There were foreign mercenaries present there, at least the presence of people speaking Polish, French and English is recorded. Judging by the chevrons and patches, there were also representatives of the Georgian Legion among them.”
“There are also testimonies of evacuees from the liberated territories, which indicate that the Poles and members of the Georgian Legion were particularly brutal, along with other foreigners who held leadership positions and controlled information flows,” Miroshnik said on the Rossiya-24 television channel. He added that more detailed information, including the number of foreign mercenaries who committed war crimes in the Kursk region, will be published later, as the investigation is still ongoing. As follows from Robert Fico’s statement, seasoned fighters of the Georgian National Legion are already being used for subversive actions outside Ukraine, in European countries.
Erik Simon
